D&D: Five Mundane Items Worth Reaching For
You don’t have to wait for magic items to have gear worth putting on your next character sheet.
When it comes time to list out your gear, it’s easy to start with weapons, armor, and then want to get right to the magic items. Which is totally fair. Magic items are exciting. They’re cool. And they do all sorts of things.
But magic items and things that do damage or prevent it aren’t the only things worth having in your backpack. Here are five mundane items worth reaching for, when you need ’em.
Ball Bearings
Ball Bearings are one of the weirdest pieces of gear on the list. You don’t expect to see them. Especially not in a sort of fantasy pastiche, but they’re right there on the equipment list. And have been around much longer than you think. They’re extremely useful for all the things that ball bearings are normally useful for, including moving things around if you can figure out how to harness their power.
But you can also use them to knock anyone or anything down. Even a massive creature like a dragon has to make a Dexterity save if it enters an area containing ball bearings. And if they fail, they fall prone. No questions asked, do not pass go, spend half of your movement standing back up (unless your movement speed is reduced to 0 in which case, stay down).
Portable Ram
You don’t have to be an ogre to use a portable battering ram. But using one will make you as strong as an ogre. Never be stopped by another locked door ever again. Just remember that you have a battering ram in your gear, and bring a friend to help you use it, and you can gain more of a bonus to your strength check than you might even with a potion of giant strength.
These are so handy for getting into places and just solving the problem of “well how are we going to get past X”. You can use them to knock down doors or even to try and break through walls if you’re strong enough and the wall is weak enough.
Spikes
Okay that picture may go a little overboard with the spikes. And the crushing ceiling trap. But, spikes can be an important tool in an adventurer’s kit as well. You can use them to jam a door or window shut, making it harder for someone to get in. Or hammer them into a wall to assist in climbing up it, if you have some rope with you. You can even use them to spike things shut. Found the vampires lair? Spike their coffin shut after you’ve staked them through the heart. Let them come back from that.
Manacles
Both spikes and manacles belong on the list of items you want to bring with you to the dungeon, for obvious reasons. Those reasons being that you may occasionally want to take an enemy prisoner. Maybe you need to capture the evil duke in order to prove his treachery, or you have to capture the bandit leader in order to prove she was hired by the evil duke – well a set of manacles makes it much harder for anyone to escape.
Mug of Ale
Finally, what item could be better than a frosty mug of ale? Every adventurer needs one. Whether you’re in the tavern or in the dungeon, you can wash your troubles down with a mug of ale, and make the world a better place, sip by sip.
Make sure you’ve always got the gear you need!
